Calling on the global Internet to keep the world free of mass government spying

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A broad coalition of businesses, civil society groups, activists, and individuals (including Boing Boing) are planning a global day of action against surveillance for February 11, in memory of Aaron Swartz and in the service of a dream for an Internet that serves liberty and hope instead of spying and control. Much of the rhetoric about curbing American spying has focused on domestic surveillance, and the right of Americans to be free from warrantless, suspicionless surveillance from their government. But there's a lot of us who aren't Americans and don't live in America and we deserve to be free, too. Katitza Rodriguez from the Electronic Frontier Foundation tackles the global agenda for February 11th in a post that calls on the global Internet to get involved in making the Internet into a force for freedom.

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The Snowden revelations have confirmed our worst fears about online spying. They show that the NSA and its allies have been building a global surveillance infrastructure to “master the internet” and spy on the world’s communications. These shady groups have undermined basic encryption standards, and riddled the Internet’s backbone with surveillance equipment. They have collected the phone records of hundreds of millions of people none of whom are suspected of any crime. They have swept up the electronic communications of millions of people at home and overseas indiscriminately, exploiting the digital technologies we use to connect and inform. They spy on the population of allies, and share that data with other organizations, all outside the rule of law.

We aren’t going to let the NSA and its allies ruin the Internet. Inspired by the memory of Aaron Swartz, fueled by our victory against SOPA and ACTA, the global digital rights community are uniting to fight back.

On February 11, on the Day We Fight Back, the world will demand an end to mass surveillance in every country, by every state, regardless of boundaries or politics. The SOPA and ACTA protests were successful because we all took part, as a community. As Aaron Swartz put it, everybody "made themselves the hero of their own story." We can set a date, but we need everyone, all the users of the Global Internet, to make this a movement.

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